Go to any worksite or any male dominated space populated by Anglo (white) men and you will hear women being referred to as meat - or worse.
What a fatuous and nasty piece of writing this is.

Clownfish

I am referring to a policy (and to some extent a mindset or framework), not making a demographic description.

Australia effectively had a policy of monoculturalism from the outset at Federation (called assimilation during some periods). 'Australia for the white man' was a core 'value' behind the colonies drawing together as a single nation in 1901.

We have moved a long way since then, but we should not forget those foundations - like all foundations, they shape structures and behaviour for a long time, and the less we become aware of them, the more likely we are to be influenced by them; wittingly or otherwise.

"We have moved a long way since then" sure Andrew, but seem to be no better off in many people's opinion

some cultures resist any kind of multiculturalism, and want no truck with any other culture and seem to at best endure it in spite .. like aboriginal culture .. what a failure that has been, years of pouring resources and money over everything, an apology .. nothing works .. surely we'll learn from this that some cultures do not get along well with others.

The white Australian (whether it is anglo originated or not) culture seems to be the most malleable and open .. yet is constantly denigrated, a reliable target and easily bullied .. constantly expected to bend and accept everyone else.

What grates on people is it is often seen as a one way street, where cultures are encouraged not to worry about changing when they come here, not to need to even speak english to communicate and that it's ok to dig in and be "special", in fact, to demand to be special.

works for some .. look at the effort we put into trying to make good our relationships with the 2 cultures most at odds with ordinary Australia .. and all the bleeding hearts defend it as libertarian growth, what rubbish, take a look .. it's not working is it

You seem to believe that Australia’s “core values” are a constant and rather than something that is ever changing. This is a conceit. There are some values that do seem to be both enduring and worthy of defending in Australia’s culture; commitment to democracy, the rule of law and a rough egalitarianism. These are values that Australians of 1960 and 1920 share. But the current view that there should be no distinction between male and female, that divorce is fine, that any family structure goes ,that there is nothing amiss with single parent families and there is nothing different between hetero and gay relationships would not only not be shared by Australians of earlier eras but would actually appal them. I have little doubt that Australia’s ‘core’ values in 50 years’ time would appal many of today’s Australians.
Societies’ values evolve overtime to reflect what works which in turn changes as technology, the strategic environment and the economy changes. The true value in Multiculturalism is that it gives a society fresh insight and new perspectives with which to build a common future, a future that works better than the present

"Go to any worksite or any male dominated space populated by Anglo (white) men and you will hear women being referred to as meat - or worse.
What a fatuous and nasty piece of writing this is."

What a fatuous and nasty comment from shal. Because there is (regrettably) sexism at the Ocker worksite, says shal, we should accept the ex cathedra utterances of racist/sexist clerics? Talk about non sequitur ...

This is in the main a good article.

It highlights some of the more deeper fears about multiculturalism which when more deeply probed has little to do with skin colour or race but more about fears of losing some strongly held democratic traditions and freedoms (real and perceived).

However, fear and miscommunication are the enemies of multiculturalism. You hear stories about Muslim women being spat on or verbally abused for wearing a head-dress but equally you hear about Australian women of non-Muslim background beng abused by Muslim men who perceive them as nothing more than 'meat'. I know of one elderly Muslim gentleman who used to throw dirt on his neighbours clothesline because they had underwear out for drying. Prejudice and fear based disdain is not confined to any one race/culture.

Tricky situation. Perhaps if more Muslims and non-Muslims mixed together in social company we would learn more about each other and remove some of those communication obstacles. The militants on both sides are probably immovable but generational change will eventually shape out those ruffles.

Many Muslims are in Australia because they fled oppressive regimes, many Muslims embrace democracy and more freedom for women, many also not wearing the headwear. People are making generalisations about Muslims in Australia based on media reporting of the more militant Imams and their followers.

However, any migrant has to adhere to the common laws and those laws should be firm and blind to cultural differences.